


regret would have tasted worse

by arthur_pendragon



Category: How to Hate Mate (Webcomic), Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - How to Hate Mate Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Endgame Merlin/Arthur, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, M/M, Non-Existent Father-Son Relationship, POV Multiple, Pining, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love, arthur is a jerk, tags will be updated with each chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2020-09-25 19:57:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20377246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_pendragon/pseuds/arthur_pendragon
Summary: Merlin (whose life is a testament to man’s ability to fuck up) gets drunk, comes out of the closet, and clumsily confesses his feelings to his straight best friend/ roommate, Arthur, all in one night.It takes two years, but he starts to pull his life together — until Arthur returns from wherever he’d disappeared to.





	1. no one's watching over us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LeFayArt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeFayArt/gifts).

> ETA: added some tags to reflect what you'll get in this fic
> 
> Inspired by the manhwa How to Hate Mate. (Summary adapted from the manhwa’s Lezhin page.) This is totally a funny-sad-silly-angsty fix-it with oodles of self-indulgence peppered throughout the writing.
> 
> Thanks for introducing the manhwa to me, Mattie. And fuck you for introducing the manhwa to me.
> 
> Blanket warning that this is a self-indulgent fic + the rating will go up later + there will <s>prolly</s> exist Problematic Content in this story.
> 
> I assure you I’ll finish this fic, so if you want to subscribe to it, do so knowing you’ll get alerts for it until it’s done.
> 
> You have not faced fic-posting troubles until you’re gingerly typing on your iPad from your post-surgery hospital room, hoping the wifi won’t betray you.

**prologue.**

_Merlin_

* * *

Merlin blames it all on the alcohol. And on Arthur. And a very tiny bit of it all on himself.

There’s a footie match airing on the TV. Arthur and Merlin are sitting a bit too close to the screen, cross-legged, downing beers one after the other. It was summer-hot all fucking day; they’d met with other friends for cheap barbecue, then Gwaine had pushed the leftovers of his twelve-pack at them, claiming liver injury and laziness. Which self-respecting skint uni grads would turn down free beer?

One-whiff-three-sheets-to-the-wind Merlin oscillates like a weathervane in a non-existent breeze (neither of them remembered to turn the fan on, and now they’re too buzzed to get up). It’s so stupid. So stupid. That he’s been holding back all this love that’s flooded him for _five_ years, for the prat he’s sitting next to. Arthur. Who’s watching the match, because he’s always been into sports at the cost of nearly everything else. Football captain in both secondary school and uni, he was. So athletic. Can run fifty thousand miles without breaking a sweat. Merlin, unwilling jogging partner and overly-enthusiastic whiner, hates him for it. Even now, he’s got a threadbare hoodie and jogging shorts on. Merlin kind of understands where the _leg = bowling pin _comparison comes from; Arthur’s calves are rock-solid odes to God.

The telly paints Arthur, in profile for Merlin, in rainbows of colours. Merlin gazes helplessly at him. In the TV lights, he can discern the fine fuzzy hair on Arthur’s face; on his forehead, his nose, his chin. Oh, look at those thick, long, girly eyelashes, that nose with that bump, that full mouth. Look at those eyes, focused intently on — him.

“What the fuck are you staring at?” Arthur says, quiet. There’s no need to be loud, see, since they’ve both found themselves mere inches away from each other, thanks to Merlin(’s thirst).

Merlin jerks back. “Wh’th’f’ck’re’you’starin’at,” he repeats, for want of a coherent response. Those eyes were just a bit too blue.

Arthur snorts. “Arsenal vs Newcastle. Plenty of drama happening on the field, too. You’d like it, if you weren’t such a swot, d’you know?”

“I like _you_,” Merlin drawls. “D’_you_ know?”

“Yeah.” Arthur raises his beer can to his lips and draws his head away, back to the match. Merlin isn’t even an afterthought for him. Well, Merlin isn’t standing for that sort of treatment from his flatmate and best friend and best straight flatmate and straight mate. He’s straight. This is such a bad idea. No, Merlin, you have five percent of your dignity left on the best of days.

... _Carpe_ the best of _diem_, then.

“Arthur! I like you.”

“Yeah.” Another swig of beer on both sides. Merlin feels the sheer Dutch courage surge to life within him.

“I like youuu.”

“I like you, too, Merls,” says Arthur, completely distracted. “Oh, God, oi, look! Fuck! Come on! _Come on, you idiot_! Jesus, that fumble —”

Merlin wrenches Arthur’s face towards him and plants an absolute smacker of a kiss on him right as the match commentator’s tinny voice screams “GOAL!”

For a teensy moment, there is silence as Arthur sighs, slow on the uptake. They kiss for about five more seconds (Merlin’s in heaven) before Arthur freezes again, finally twigging, and shoves Merlin off. Merlin, scarecrow, can’t get up in time before Arthur growls,

“That’s fucking disgusting.”

And Merlin’s blood runs _cold_.

“Is that what you’d meant to do to me all this time?” Arthur demands. “Are you bent?”

“I — no, listen, I’m sorry, Arthur, I’m really drunk,” Merlin stammers, but Arthur is already grabbing his wallet and dashing out the door. Merlin listens to the door slam, the cheering fans on the godforsaken television set, the trickle of the leftover beer sloshing out of the fallen-over cans, the silence, the void where Arthur’s presence thrummed.

“Well, then,” he says to the empty room. “That went brilliantly. RIP me.”

He curls up on the floor, in Arthur’s spot since he’s such a romantic, and closes his eyes —

— opening them the next afternoon, hungover as hell, to find that every single one of Arthur’s belongings has disappeared from their flat-share, the half-drunk twelve-pack all that’s left of his flatmate and best friend and best straight flatmate and straight mate.

Merlin takes a deep breath.

“Well, what the _fuck_ am I going to do about the rent?”


	2. it's not confession

**one.**

_Arthur_

* * *

The first night away from — him, Arthur has sex with two birds. At the same time. In one of the girls’ bedrooms, because he still hasn’t found a place to live, leave his previous accommodation so suddenly the way he did.

(His belongings are lamenting his ownership of them over at Leon’s. Good man, Leon; hadn’t asked a single question — or maybe he’d just been too fucking sleepy — when Arthur’d dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night to pack up all his shit around the sleeping/dead body in front of the telly. Arthur couldn’t bring himself to check the score, or go near the beer-can Stonehenge.)

Both the girls are gorgeous; both of them had approached him in the club he’d been killing time at. He’s no idiot, he didn’t say no. Now one of them’s riding him and the other’s sitting on his face, and they’re both so loud, Jesus. Arthur guesses they’re kissing in between all the moaning, but it isn’t as if he’s focusing on anything save for the sweet, pungent warmth spreading around his tongue, the tight heat clamped and pulsing around his cock.

He must’ve been doing something right ’cause the girl rubbing her cunt against his mouth comes, shuddering and crying, and he should not be relieved about it, but he is. She gets off him quick and laps up all the wet on his mouth and nose and chin, and then they kiss open-mouthed until he remembers the other one and thrusts up into her right as she’s sinking on him. She nearly screams. See? He’s not gay. He’d not be able to get it up for her, get it up into her if he were.

It doesn’t take long for her to shiver and go weak, too. He’s somewhat proud of himself; but he’s not done himself yet (fuckin’ A, lasting longer than either, both), and the birds come to a telepathic decision to go to _town_ on his cock together, until he’s just as wrung-out and exhausted.

Come morning, he’s looking at the black sheen of their hair and the miles of pale skin and he sort of hates them for bearing even the slightest resemblance to _that _idiot, hates himself for picking them. Now stop making any further undue associations between the girls and the fuckhead.

There’s ten minutes of hiding in the shower and then he finds himself furtively fucking off to a café to meet Leon.

* * *

“Threesome? Really?” questions Leon, once Arthur’s done telling the sordid tale.

“Ménage à trois, you uncultured swine.” Arthur immediately downs his poorly-made espresso shot like it’s anything but. Leon looks on with mild disgust as Arthur pretends not to gag.

“What’s your father going to think?”

“It’s been a while since I talked to him.” Uni graduation, to be precise, where Uther had all but disowned him for wanting to have his own life. He’s got some grovelling to do in front of the old man, now; and if, maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll be taken back over with stylish nepotism and an instant job transfer to anywhere but this city. This city is where — _he_ is. Here is where he kissed him. Here is where Merlin Wyllt fucked everything up.

“How d’you think he’ll react?”

“Prolly got a body double acting as me in public.” Arthur wouldn’t put it past Uther to do that. Everything facile and public the body double’d turn up for, and no one’d know the difference. Arthur hasn’t Googled himself in a while. The charm wore off in sync with any sort of recognition from the paps, as well as Uther’s fondness for him.

“I’m not fucking gay,” he tells Leon. “I’m not — I don’t like it up the arse. I don’t like it. Mer—Wyllt does. He’s a fucking p—”

“Don’t finish that sentence, for the love of God,” says Leon, looking like he wishes the café were a pub and he were drunk on the building.

“Fine,” says Arthur, but he’s scowling at his new best friend as he does it (the old one can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, ’cause he’s dead — to Arthur). “But I’m not whatever he is.”

“Why’s it matter?”

“He kissed me.”

“Oh,” Leon says. Then: “Did you like it?”

“_Leon_.”

“Did you kiss him back?”

Arthur really means to lie. He really does, but instead what falls out is: “A little, but I was rat-arsed!” and of course that blows up his entire argument because of fucking course it does. Leon just now rolled his eyes as if he were faced with all the world’s done-ness and is bound to never take him seriously again.

“There’s something wrong with you,” he says, and Arthur pauses in his hasty rebuttals to feel — _hurt_. “You really dropped Merlin over this? Really?”

“Look,” Arthur begins. “He had no right —”

“He was drunk, too. You couldn’t let it go?”

“He said he fancied the hell out of me,” says Arthur. “And then he grabbed my face and then…” He wasn’t supposed to _be _like that; not him, not Wyllt. “He wrecked everything. We were best mates, and he just tied it all up in a sack and tossed it over a bridge. You really think there’s any way for me to forget that he wants to choke on my dick?”

Leon sighs. He clearly isn’t on Arthur’s side of things. “I’ll stay out of your business, Arthur. But don’t expect me to treat Merlin the way you’ve done.”

Arthur shrugs.

They talk about other things. Leon says Arthur can stay over at his for as long as he likes, but he _will_ be inviting girls over, and Arthur is _not_ invited along to purloin them from under Leon’s <strike>knob</strike> nose.

When they do the whole macho one-armed hug and back-clap, it isn’t without the slightest, tiniest coldness in their shared air. The disappointment Arthur feels radiating off Leon is familiar.

Whatever. Arthur’ll walk away, as he always does. He needs Leon, but only for now. He’s no stranger to cutting his losses and vanishing.

* * *

Uther agrees to see Arthur without an appointment. In the series of mental chess games (stress games) that comprises Arthur’s relationship with his father, Arthur just crushed his bishop to make way for his queen.

_Famous for his rags-to-riches story, Uther Pendragon has never sacrificed his work ethic for frivolity, not even when he began to put in guest appearances on Dragons’ Den._

Having this sentence etched into the inside of the elevator doors (so everyone who goes up thirty floors to be graced by his presence is reminded of the indefatigability of the codger) is plenty frivolous. But Arthur’s not the one with the money that paid for it, so for now, his lot in life is to shut up and beg.

Since childhood he’s been put through numerous treatises on the topic of his father by people looking to piggyback off the latter’s achievements. Before his estrangement he’d felt honour-bound, really, to be —

“The prodigal son,” Uther booms. Arthur cringes inwardly as the entire workspace surrounding Uther’s central office stills work to peer at him. Just as Uther had intended. Bastard. (Pawn blocks Queen’s path, backed up by a bishop and another pawn.)

“Hullo, father,” says Arthur, noticing that Uther’s aware that he turned up in a faded T-shirt and ripped-at-the-knees denims on purpose. The pair of aviators hanging off the rounded collar, making a V out of it, certainly won’t let Uther hold him in high esteem. (Rook advances lazily, whimsically, because it felt like it.)

“Sit down.”

Uther’s secretary (executive assistant, she’d insist, if she’d got the balls to stand up to Uther) comes in with a tray bearing coffee and biscuits. Once she’s gone, Arthur takes a look at the beige of the beverage and snorts very audibly.

“Some Brit you are,” he snarks. No, sorry, no, he’s s’posed to beg for a job to get him out of here. The thought of Merlin Wyllt and everything that happened two-ish days ago sobers him up rather quick and he straightens his back in his wooden, unpadded chair. Uther has this thing about ensuring his seat isn’t too comfy, so he won’t get the urge to relax and thus slack off during work hours (_The Tears of Uther Pendragon_, p. 178). He could’ve spared his subordinates the pain, but didn’t, to no one’s surprise.

“Cajoling a meeting out of me after the strong, strong words you spoke that day” — Uther pauses here to smile benevolently — “you must really want something from me and my wallet. What is it?”

“A job and then a job transfer,” Arthur says immediately. “I’ll agree to any conditions you may have, assuming they’re reasonable.” (Check.)

Now it’s Uther’s turn to snort. (Queen counters.)

Three hours of negotiation (and seven meetings Uther ordered his executive secretary assistant to cancel) later, Arthur has a contract and a plane ticket to the States. (Checkmate.) It was painful but exceedingly vindicatory to learn that a body double _had_ been considered for him, and that only a timely intervention from Arthur’s father-adjacent, Gaius, had stopped some bloke called William Dairy? Daira? from earning thousands to sit around on his arse in Arthur’s old clothes.

Doesn’t matter. The son’s come home. The son’s going to America. The son won’t be back for a long time.

Fuck you, Merlin Wyllt. But not in the way you want.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would 10000% love to know what you think of this update (i promise i'll finish the story)


	3. no preacher to teach us to love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for subscribing to this story and waiting patiently for updates.

**two.**

_Merlin_

* * *

Merlin had liked to play the piano when he was a kid. He wasn’t very good at it. His mum would gingerly knock on his bedroom door at one in the morning, like it was killing her to do it, and ask him to go to sleep. Merlin would obey her, as if he gave a shit about school, and he’d lie in bed all stretched out under the covers, staring up at the ceiling, wondering what song he’d cover next.

At fourteen, he’d been too busy playing with his cock to play anything else.

Then at university, he’d roomed with the most arrogant prat he’d ever met and fallen deeply in <strike>love</strike> lust with him. He’d get drunk too much, too often, and sit down to write melancholy music about Arthur, thinking himself one of the greats, who’d live their lives in obscurity only to make it big after death. He’d black out before he got more than the key and a few notes on paper, and wake up to a full song in his fist and Arthur dragging him to class in the same whiffy clothes as the previous night.

(One particularly injurious binge-drinking session resulted in a discordant melody that sent dread shooting through his heart when he read it. These weren’t his feelings for Arthur. His feelings for the great prat weren’t anything like passionate heartbreak and despair. They were just multiple, slightly different variants of horniness. Arthur was just another straight bloke who’d do one if Merlin outed himself.) Fuck.

He never touched manuscript paper again. That one-sheet composition full of cock-blocked anguish at Arthur’s complete lack of availability had signalled an abrupt end to his music journey. He’d folded it carefully and stuck it in between the pages of his least-favourite book (some pap about the inexorability of nature; about a whale and an arsehole) and done his best to forget about it.

Then Arthur fucked off to America because that’s how radioactive Merlin was to him, and Merlin started getting drunk a whole fucking lot more, and he thought he’d start composing again. This time he’d be justified in writing emo music.

Didn’t happen. Merlin had well and truly burnt all the music out of his soul.

Didn’t matter.

* * *

There’s this guy called Lancelot he matched with on a dating app.

Merlin wanted to shag him on the first “date”, but Lancelot turned out to be one of the good ’uns, the son of a bitch, and was holding out until the third date.

Said third date happens at a bar. So Merlin gets utterly pissed with Lancelot’s money. Because that’s his life now. Drink and make it through the day. Rinse (the vomit out) and repeat. Drink, and drink, and say goodbye to your liver and develop alcoholism and die maybe hopefully if there’s any fucking god who’s watching this mess.

Lancelot tries to make conversation with him. Merlin chooses to sit next to him instead of opposite, and he’s got his head on the man’s shoulder. Lancelot smells very nice. He’s even got dressed up formally for the goddamn pub, like he actually gives a shit about everything. Like he cares what he looks like in front of a — fucking _boy_, really — who’s shown up in a grotty little T-shirt and pink fucking hot pants. And he doesn’t even _mind_ Merlin’s get-up. He said it looks _nice_. The _fuck_.

“So d’you want to do it with me or not?” he slurs after the sixth time Lancelot tries to replace his vodka shots with water.

“That’s — very abrupt,” says Lancelot, but he only looks amused by it all. “Why?”

“You’re some hotshot CEO, aren’t you? Used to having things your way, yeah? You’d know what to do.” Merlin closes his lips over the straw of the fruity monstrosity Lance (he lets Merlin call him Lance) got for himself. He hopes it looks sexy. He knows he’s a consummate twink. He’s just trying to lose his arse virginity here. No feelings involved. No hearts and no kisses, just — sex and sex and sex until all thoughts of Arthu—Arth—Arthur Pendragon are gone from his mind forever.

“You think so,” whispers Lancelot, and finally, finally he bends towards Merlin and kisses him, sucks the alcohol right off his tongue. Merlin moans and kisses back, and it’s perfect because he was right, Lancelot knew his way ’round mouths and — oh fuck oh fuck — groins.

“Fuck me,” he keens. “Fuck me.”

“So you can get over that straight guy you’re pining for?”

Merlin freezes. “Who?” he asks, without much hope.

“The arsehole who’s been in America for two years now? Arthur something? Posh twat with daddy issues?”

Damn it. Merlin remembers fessing up to all this on the first “date”, hoping Lance’d pity-fuck him. He’s not going to let that go, huh?

“So what,” he mumbles.

Lancelot kisses him again, soft and sweet and thorough and filthy. Merlin wants to climb onto his lap and rub his arse all over Lance’s hardness. There must be one. Merlin’s pretty enough… isn’t he? It’d feel good. He’d feel so good. He’d close his eyes and pretend the cock was Arthur’s and the kisses were from Arthur and — ugh.

“It may surprise you, little falcon, but I’m not in the habit of shagging men who’re so drunk they can’t even get it up.”

“I can,” protests Merlin plaintively, grabbing the waistband of his hot pants and shimmying them down. He’ll prove it — he can get hard even after six shots of vodka straight (ha). People are beginning to stare at him. He detects hungry looks from most of them. Or maybe they’re judging him for being comfortable with exposing himself. Fine, he’ll give them a show, too. Prove he isn’t some bitch unworthy of Arthur’s attention.

“No, Merlin, not necessary,” says Lancelot, grabbing Merlin’s hands and instead drawing them up his own neck and then behind. Before Merlin knows it, Lance’s lifted him up with a sure hand on his arse and carried him to the bartender’s, and then outside. Even though the bar was stiflingly hot despite the regular blasts of the AC, outside is even hotter, somehow. Merlin can feel the sweat rolling off him in fat rivulets, crawling down his skin into all manner of crevices, including his arse crack, and the seam of his lips, and the bends of his elbows.

“Merlin, hey.”

Merlin lifts his head from Lance’s shoulder to peer blearily at him. Leans forward for a kiss that Lance readily gives. So fucking gently. He must pity Merlin, too. Just like Gwaine and Leon and the rest of his mates that ditched him for Arthur.

“I’m going to call you a taxi, all right? And you’re going to get in and go home and drink some fucking water before you dehydrate and die.”

“Mm.”

“Will you be all right?”

“Sure,” says Merlin, used to being abandoned anyway. He slides off Lance and stands on his own feet. “See?” he ambles forward. “Straight line. ’m gonna be fine.” He blows Lancelot a kiss from what seems like twenty miles away, and folds to his knees, suddenly weeping.

* * *

Lancelot gives him a love bite in the cab. He has a finger over Merlin’s lips, quieting him, so the driver can neither see nor hear them. Merlin’s entire attention is on the patch of his skin that Lancelot’s suckling. It feels — good.

“Here,” says the driver, and Lancelot bundles Merlin out, throwing notes and going _keep the change, mate_. He carries Merlin up to his shitty flat.

Same flat he kissed Arthur in. He had nothing left of Arthur’s the day after, except the flat and the bed that Arthur slept in. His best friend. He’d been Merlin’s best friend, and one kiss had sent him running. Fuck.

Three jobs pay the rent for this shithole. Merlin teaches, and plays, and works at the local grocery’s check-out to afford this fucking place. His mum keeps ringing him and telling him to just come home, _it’ll be a fresh start_, but Merlin’s not made for fresh starts, no. He’s got to make do with the scraps of flesh and bones that the world throws him, because otherwise his last splintering tie to his erstwhile best friend will _snap_ and Merlin’s afraid of the person he used to be before Arthur Pendragon turned up in his life. He used to be a better person back then, before all these _feelings_ made him shrivel up.

He doesn’t even notice Lancelot’s undressed him and made him wear proper pants. He doesn’t notice Lance bringing a glass of water to his lips. Just drinks whatever’s in his mouth. Practice for blow jobs, if Lance’ll ever let him near his cock after today’s utter debacle.

“Listen, I’ve left some paracetamol for you on the bed. Take it tomorrow morning. Don’t swallow dry.”

“Will I hear from you again?” whines Merlin, not willing to lie down.

Lancelot pecks him on the cheek. “Of course. I’ve simply got to know what you look like when you _can_ get it up, yeah?”

“Yeah,” says Merlin, and feels his face creak as he smiles.

“Good night, lush little falcon,” says Lance, and then he’s gone and closed the door behind him.

There is an abounding silence, but little to no light to see the ceiling with.

“Happy birthday to me,” sings Merlin, heart heavy, and lulls himself to sleep.

He sleeps fitfully.

And the next morning he’s woken up by a fucking cricket ball to the gut.

“What the fuck!” he yells, hunching over in bed. Cricket balls weigh a bloody ton, and this one’s going to leave a mark.

“And the umpire raises a finger aaaaaand he’s _out_!” shouts a voice Merlin knows very well. Gwaine. The bastard continues with the mock-commentary: “Gwaine Greene celebrates in his signature style, with his teammates slapping him on the back and sledging the outgoing batsman.”

“Fuck off, Greene,” Merlin grunts, and reaches for the paracetamol Lance left him. He’s not ready to face a man he’s only seen the mug of maybe twice in two years.

“Aw, even though I’ve brought you a beautiful birthday present?” says Gwaine, laughing. Merlin’s barely grabbed the tablets before he’s being manhandled out of bed by the arsehole. “Someone had a good night, eh, Merls?”

“Gimme the gift and piss off,” says Merlin, still not quite awake, and only when Gwaine steps to the side and indicates something with a flourish does he see that the gift Gwaine meant is apparently his best friend come back from America, Arthur Pendragon.

“Hi,” says Arthur cautiously, warily, as if Merlin’s going to throw himself at him with all his gayness.

Merlin stares a beat, turns, and promptly sicks up over Gwaine’s trainers.

**Author's Note:**

> I am a slut for feedback of any kind, AND I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER IF YOU TELL ME WHAT YOU THOUGHT. And even if you don’t. But more if you do. No pressure, though.


End file.
